


After

by acertaindefenseattorney



Category: Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:45:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acertaindefenseattorney/pseuds/acertaindefenseattorney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-AJ. I appreciate this pairing a lot. Nobody else does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After

It starts on the night of Kristoph’s execution. Which is, Phoenix knows, a bad time to start anything at all. He feels responsible. He feels sympathy. He feels something, so he stands outside the prison while Klavier is in there, ‘in there’, like it’s an appointment, a trip to the dentist; and when he comes out, the taxi is waiting, and he knows not to say anything, but holds open the door, slides in beside him, sits there.

Warm bodies. That’s all anyone ever needs, really, isn’t it?

He waits minutes before asking him how he is. Not if he’s ok, which is an expectation; but how he is, which is open to all answers. Klavier looks at him, blinks with that alien look in his eyes that he’s only ever seen on him, and opens his mouth, and closes it, and says. 

_Thirsty._

So Phoenix, dumb as hell, pulls a bottle of water from his bag and offers it to him, but of course he shakes his head, smiles a condescending little smile. No. Obviously. 

And at home, he drinks. And each drink is like turning the faucet a little more, and the words come out in drips, and spurts, words like _bounced_ and _brother_ , fragments of sensible thought, _I have to feed Vongole_ , words Phoenix can’t translate, and he drinks, until the drips and spurts are a single flow. 

And that comes to _make me feel good_. And _please, make me feel something other than this_ , a pitiful, overflowing _can’t_ and _don’t make me feel this_ and he sounds so desperate, so needing and so open and so hurt that in one moment Phoenix almost lets him press him up to the wall; holding his wrists, breathing tears into his mouth; before regaining his senses.

_Make it stop_ , Klavier says. _Make me feel something else._

He puts him to bed. Drags the duvet over him, and tugs off his heavy boots. In a moment of being Phoenix, completely and utterly, blue suit, old days, stupid, soft Phoenix he finds himself tucking him in. Cocooning the sheets around him the way he would for Trucy when she was sick. 

Klavier’s eyes are alien again. His sobs coming out in small hiccups. _I don’t want, I don’t want, I don’t want._

Ok. It’s ok, kiddo. It’s ok.

Phoenix thinks of Kristoph. Thinks of Klavier’s bandmate, Daryan Crescend, rotting in a cell, and thinks. 

It’s probably not ok, really.

He sleeps on the couch.


End file.
